Without a real understanding of creativity and what the research on creativity means to us as educators, we come dangerously close to reducing it to an empty term or buzzword.

Researchers wrestling over definitions of creativity mention one common quality again and again: newness. Traditionally, it was believed that producing new and valuable entities required special talent or genius. “Unless one can first construct reality one cannot reconstruct it and the quality of reconstruction is dependent upon the level of the initial construction of it.” (Pickard) Now, however, the consensus seems to be that the potential for creativity exists in everyone. This is often the kind of creativity teachers refer to, a sort of self-actualizing creativeness that stresses “characterlogical qualities like boldness, courage, freedom, spontaneity, perspicuity, integration, self-acceptance, all of which make possible the self-actualizing creativeness, which expresses itself in the creative life, or the creative attitude or the creative person.” The question arises: What conditions are favourable and unfavourable for the appearance of these behaviours?

Cannon views the following as favourable conditions: great interest in the problem to be solved, an eager desire for the solution and a large store of unrelated information. He lists these as unfavourable conditions: mental and physical fatigue, petty irritations, noise, worry over domestic matters, depression, strong emotions and being driven to work under pressure. With regard to the latter, perhaps we’ve come across something teachers can control in the atmosphere we establish and maintain for our students.

Creativity requires quiet for contemplation, but many overscheduled children simply have no time to stand and stare. “Teachers who teach for meaning also make time for wonder. This means not rushing headlong through lessons to get to the next one.” (Brooks) Schools must provide opportunities and materials for exploration. The environment should be warm and accepting, without sacrificing order and discipline to spontaneity and inspiration, or vice versa. And, finally, adult responses to children’s creative behaviour, probably the single most important influence in the development of creativity, need to be accepting.

Frank Williams’ research attributes the absence of creativity in adults and children to the influence of attitudes demonstrated by adults in the child’s first seven years. During these crucial years, children are eager to take the initiative, be original and discover on their own. “If suppressed or ridiculed during this time, the joys of creative performance and productions are likely to be replaced by guilt or apathy.” (Williams) He emphasizes that both the home and school must be responsive places for children, offering a great variety of opportunities for exploring, questioning, inventing and wondering as children ponder over things using their imagination and curiosity, the two essential tools in the creative process. How then do we ensure students use these
wonderful resources?

As important as the learning environment is to the creative process, it is not enough to simply encourage students to express themselves freely, then hope for the best. Schools must give students a base upon which to build; imagination and curiosity must be unleashed on the curriculum at hand if creativity is to occur. How? By teaching for meaning. “Education is not just about acquiring knowledge, but about learning how to do significant things with what you know.”

Children come to school relying upon their ability to imitate, which they have been doing all their lives. In school, teaching by example means we continue to ask children to imitate. So when we ask them to be creative, they imitate. They are likely to change only if we engage their imaginations, and lead them to be dissatisfied with imitation.

Graham Wallas describes the developmental stages of creative thinking as preparation, incubation, illumination and verification. For example, students learning about ecology might prepare by “mess-finding” in a small pile of garbage they’ve brought to school. While students catalogue their findings, they would pose questions about what they were seeing: what materials are thrown away and in what percentage, how they decompose, how the container relates to the contents. Students mull over what they have seen, incubating their ideas. They would work in groups based on the problems they formulate or illuminate: How could we package so that everything would decompose or take up less room? How could we recycle into useful products? As students imagine solutions and verify ideas as workable, they will certainly have moved beyond imitation to creativity.

Another strategy might be Wiggins and MacTighe’s Six Facets of Understanding: explanation (Why is this so? What explains such events? What accounts for such action? How can we prove it? How does this work?), interpretation (What does it mean? Why does it matter? What does it illustrate about the human experience?), application (How and where can we use this knowledge?), perspective (What is assumed that needs to be made explicit? Is there adequate evidence? What are the strengths and weaknesses of this idea?), empathy (What do they see that I don’t? What do I need to experience if I am to understand?) and self-knowledge (What are the limits of my understanding? What are my blind spots?). Involving students as deeply as possible in the central themes of the discipline, opening different windows on the same concept and, like explorers in search of the new world, letting kids have “Christopherian” encounters will ensure teaching for significant meaning.

All who influence our students’ development must foster creativity. All must take responsibility for understanding the complexity of creativity and for knowing how classroom environments and teaching for meaning combine so imaginations are engaged and creativity thrives.

All of us want to know how our world works: why a piece of music is beautiful to one person and cacophonous to another, how engines are able to make cars move, why green leaves turn brown and helium balloons stay aloft, or how new languages develop. Living means perpetually searching for meaning. Schools need to be places that keep this search alive. (Brooks)


Read more:
Brooks, Jacqueline, Grennon, In Search of Understanding, the Case for the Constructivist Classroom
Pickard, Eileen, The Development of Creative Ability
Wiggins, Grant and McTighe, Jay, Understanding by Design
Williams, Frank, Developing Children’s Creativity at Home and in School